A demand for more space in a vehicle for passenger seats and lodging has been increasing. For example, increasing leisure activities for people to spend more time driving has increased a demand for more boarding space or for luggage space in a vehicle. Accordingly, there has been an increasing demand for a multi-purpose vehicle (MPV: 6 to 11 passenger vehicle), which can carry more equipment for various kinds of activities.
Particularly, an 11 or more passenger vehicle having an arrangement of four-row seats or more has several seat functions in order to obtain more luggage space.
In order to obtain as much as possible of luggage space in the vehicle, there have been proposed several types of accommodation portions on a floor, thereby accommodating a seat in the accommodation portion.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,997,498 discloses a seat apparatus for a vehicle, which inserts a seat into a concavely formed accommodation portion, using an X-type link or damper.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,328,930 discloses a seat for a vehicle, which is mounted to be foldable on a floor by two links.
As a representative type of MPVs, a seat structure has been disclosed in which an accommodation portion 1 can be separated from the seating position 3 of a seat 2 as shown in FIG. 1.
There has also been disclosed a seat structure in which, as shown in FIG. 2, a fourth row seat 6 can be moved to a third row seat as close as possible, using a slide rail mounted on a floor, by rotating and tipping up a front end portion of a seat cushion 5 in the direction of the seat back 6.
As described above, a vehicle having an arrangement of three or four-row seats implements various seat functions in order to achieve more space. However, a vehicle having an arrangement of four-row seats further has one more row of seats than that of three-row seats. Therefore, there are some difficulties in achieving sufficient space.